


John the True

by kisahawklin



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fairy Tales, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-10
Updated: 2009-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:46:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite what people thought, Atlantis didn't speak to John until they had been there a couple of years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John the True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/gifts).



Despite what people thought, Atlantis didn't speak to John until they had been there a couple of years. Apparently, Atlantis needed some help, because the day after he got his subspace transponder, a robotically smooth baritone voice said _Hello, John_ in his head, and that was when his second belief about Atlantis was crushed. Atlantis was male. It wasn't until a couple of years later that his final belief was shattered. Atlantis was definitely not _benevolent_.

When Atlantis started telling him things, they were mostly harmless, and mostly for him. Things like where the best running tracks were, living quarters that were designed for living as opposed to crouching down in (hey, built-in bathrooms – why hadn't they thought of that?). Then the science stuff started to appear. Granted, some of it was more civil engineering, but it was clearly information meant for Rodney, or maybe Zelenka.

Whether or not he passed information on was based on how many crises Rodney was working on at the moment and how cool the science was. These days, a pleasant distraction for Rodney was more of an incentive than anything. It had been a hard couple of years.

Elizabeth was still around when he was first shown what he started to think of as 'The Time Capsule.' Atlantis whispered in his mind while he was scoping out a new route for his run with Ronon. He stopped, at Atlantis's request in front of a door somewhere in a tower on the southwest arm, and only hesitated for a second before swiping his hand over the crystals to open the door. The crystals flashed like there was some kind of power surge, but the door didn't budge.

He went to Elizabeth with the location of the room and they looked it up on the database. There was only a single line entry: _Do not open until..._ John secretly thought of Ancient dates as stardates because the numbers made no sense to him, and anyway, they relied on a measurement of time that was different from his, so it's not like it mattered.

Elizabeth took some time to figure out the math and radioed him later that evening to say that the date was roughly seven thousand years after the Ancients left.

"So we can open it?" John said, already thinking about how Rodney would work around the stuck door.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Elizabeth said, and John rolled his eyes. This type of conversation was a lot easier over the radio. "Whatever it was took the Ancients seven thousand years to work out. I don't think we're ready for it, even if it is three thousand years past its due date."

John sighed. There was no way to know what was in there until they went in there - and Elizabeth was never going to okay it, so he needed to let it go. "Sorry, buddy," he said, patting the wall.

Atlantis seemed to quiet down after that. There wasn't any more useful information, and the voice seemed to be stubbornly silent. It wasn't _gone_, just not communicating any more. That creeped John out more than a little, so he did what he always did with the disturbing stuff - bury it so deep it was almost as good as forgetting.

* * *

"Colonel, I need your gene."

"Good to be appreciated, McKay," John answered. "Where are you?"

"I'm in one of the smaller towers on the southwest side of the city. Use a lifesigns detector, it's faster."

It wasn't until John nearly fell over because of the crippling vision that he realized where Rodney must be standing. Atlantis showed him a vision of Rodney getting the door open and something exploding in his face – and then Rodney, burned and bloody and missing an arm. By the time the vision was over, John was on his knees and panting, one hand on the wall the only thing keeping him from going down completely. He rested his face against the cool metal of the city and fought the urge to throw up.

"What can I do to stop it?" John asked, and view of the interior of the room came into view. There was a small rectangular package on top of the door crystals. _Disable it with force_, Atlantis said.

"Great," John said, and doubled back for some C4 and a grenade or two. He hadn't moved ten feet when he was shown another vision. This one was of Rodney touching the console in the room and going into seizures, his face stiffening in an expression of shock, foam oozing out of his mouth in a thick, continuous stream.

John kept his feet this time, and by the time he opened his mouth ask what to do, Atlantis had already answered. _Burn off the poison._

"Poison?" John asked wearily. "What the hell is in there?" Atlantis didn't answer.

"Fine," John sighed. "Anything else to show me?" He was glad he had the wall at his back when he asked, because the vision of a hole the size of a basketball burned through the middle of Rodney was really enough to take his feet out from under him. It had been some sort of massive laser, and the look on Rodney's face would have been comical if John couldn't smell his burnt flesh. Atlantis answered him before he even voiced his question. _The machine requires the blood of the user. Three drops._

"Are you kidding me?" John groaned in frustration and clicked on his radio.

* * *

_"Rodney, don't you touch _anything_ until I get there, do you understand me?"_

"Yes, colonel," Rodney answered, looking at his watch. He'd already been waiting ten minutes. "God forbid I get my hands on the good toys first."

_"I mean it, Rodney. Don't go messing around with anything."_

"Fine," Rodney answered, clicking the channel off. It wasn't like he hadn't been plucking at the door crystals for half an hour. He wasn't going to get into this room without Sheppard's help anyway.

It took Sheppard another ten minutes to get to Rodney, and he was sure to be glancing at his watch as Sheppard rolled up, complete with knife, sidearm, and a backpack. Hopefully full of MREs so they wouldn't have to leave to eat for at least twelve hours after they figured out whatever was in there.

"Where the hell have you been?" Rodney asked, trying once more to pull the cover off the door crystals.

"Hey, don't touch that," Sheppard complained, shoving his way in front of Rodney. He pulled off the backpack, and Rodney watched with horror as he pulled out a block of C4.

"What are you doing?" Rodney asked, trying to grab the C4 before Sheppard could put the detonator in. Sheppard seemed to be all elbows, because he fended Rodney off effortlessly. "All I need is your gene, colonel!"

"Back up," Sheppard said, shoving Rodney back down the corridor. Rodney protested as loudly as he could, but he wasn't really averse to blowing things up, so he let Sheppard push him out of harm's way.

The doors still weren't open when they came back, but there was a nice sized hole in the wall to peer through.

"Aw, the doors didn't open," Sheppard sing-songed. "I guess we should go."

"Are you kidding?" Rodney said, turning to gape at Sheppard for a second before reaching into the wall. "What's wrong with you?"

Sheppard shrugged, watching where Rodney's hand disappeared behind the twisted metal at the edge of the hole. "Are you sure that's safe?"

"Of course it's safe," Rodney answered, though he turned back to look at what he was doing. "Sam researched mechanical releases on the doors after getting stuck in the transporter with Zelenka. Said she never wanted anyone else to..." He paused to yank on the lever. The half of the door on the side with the crystals couldn't slide back in; it had been too damaged. The other half slid right into place though, and that was enough room for them to get through. "Hey, what are you doing?"

Sheppard had slid through the opening and was pulling something else out of his backpack. A blowtorch. A _blowtorch_?

He stepped up to try and talk some sense into Sheppard, but Sheppard turned on him with the lit blowtorch. "Back up, Rodney," was the last thing he said before he settled a gas mask over his face.

Rodney backed up.

He watched, mesmerized, as Sheppard attacked the lone console in the middle of the room. The ventilation kicked in noisily as he did it, which was good because it smelled something awful.

Rodney watched as a thin layer of film evaporated under Sheppard's blowtorch, and then watched as the console started to burn. He stepped up behind Sheppard, unsure how to get him to stop without startling him.

It turned out that Sheppard had auromatic sensors at the limits of his personal space, because as soon as Rodney was within three feet of him, he turned the blowtorch off and set it down. He took off the gas mask as Rodney stepped up next to him to check the heat coming off the console by holding a hand six inches above the touchpad.

Before he could actually put hands on the panel, Sheppard captured his outstretched arm, pulling it in close to his body and wrapping one arm around it to keep it flush against his side.

When he pulled out his knife, Rodney started to panic. "John?"

"Hold still, Rodney. I need you to trust me."

Rodney wasn't afraid - not really. Sheppard wouldn't hurt him - that knowledge was part of him, part of his muscle memory where Sheppard was concerned. The colonel said duck, you ducked. The colonel said run, you ran. John looked like he was going to cut you... and you gave a token protest and looked the other direction.

The knife was cool and smooth against his hand as Sheppard sliced thinly into the meat of his palm. _Jesus_ that hurt. Pain bloomed red against the back of his eyelids and he managed to bite his lip before he wailed or screamed or fainted, but he couldn't quite keep the whimper from coming out.

Nothing happened, and there was a brief moment of 'oh shit, Sheppard's actually lost it' before Sheppard turned his hand over and squeezed the cut.

"Ow, god damn it!"

Rodney couldn't see what Sheppard was doing, but he yanked on his arm, desperate to get his hand back without any more damage. This was as far as his trust went. His hands were valuable tools, he needed them for the thousand and one ways he saved everyone's lives around this place in any given day.

"Hang on a second," Sheppard said, and Rodney stopped resisting, only mildly irritated at the disturbing connotations of blindly obeying Sheppard. Sheppard put something smooth and slimy on the cut. Rodney assumed it was antibacterial, but it seemed to be numbing, so by the time Sheppard had finished wrapping his hand, it didn't hurt much anymore.

"I'm not crazy," John said, as if Rodney had been planning on saying he was.

"You _cut_ me," Rodney accused, because if Sheppard wanted to argue about it, he had a few things he wanted to air out.

"Shallowly," said Sheppard, too reasonably, "in a place that would give enough of blood, heal quickly, and not prevent you from working with your hands."

"Give enough blood?" Rodney asked, and he could feel the blood drain right out of his face. He wondered if he might be going into shock.

John nodded, not offering any further explanation.

"Please identify," a smooth baritone voice said, and Sheppard whipped his head around to look at the console. It had lit up and had a double helix pattern on an HUD. Rodney moved fast, stepping easily around Sheppard and looking up at the display with awe, injured hand forgotten.

"Dr. Rodney McKay," he said, before Sheppard could make some other protest.

"Welcome, Dr. Rodney McKay," the console said, and Rodney would have rubbed his hands together in glee, if it wasn't for the cut one. The database required DNA authentication. If Sheppard hadn't bled him, who knows what kind of defenses this thing –

"Don't, Rodney."

Rodney looked from Sheppard to the console and back again. "Why not? I should get something for the blood I shed."

"Trust me, Rodney. I can't tell you why."

That got Rodney's attention, and he turned away from the console that was now flashing images of blueprints. "Are you feeling okay?" Rodney asked. "Whatever this is, it was..." One of the images caught Rodney's eye and he turned back toward the console. "It was a power source."

Rodney was drawn to the console like a moth to the flame, but Sheppard grabbed his arm and yanked him back. "I have a bad feeling."

"Oh yes, colonel, a _bad feeling_," Rodney said, pulling his arm out of John's grip and stepping back up to the console. "That definitely trumps a more powerful energy source than a ZPM."

"My bad feelings have saved your ass more than once, McKay," Sheppard snapped.

"In the field," Rodney threw back at him. He was already whipping through the console's directories, searching for the rest of the blueprints for the mini-ZPM. "We're in my territory now."

"Atlantis has been talk–"

Rodney looked up at the console, not seeing what would have prevented Sheppard from finishing his sentence. It was the same blueprint that had been showing since Rodney had started playing with the console. He turned to Sheppard to see what the deal was. Sheppard stood stock still, almost as if Rodney were stopping time like in the movies.

"John?" Rodney asked, slapping Sheppard's face. It didn't move. The flesh didn't jiggle, his head didn't move to the side, nothing. It was like he'd been petrified. "John?!" Rodney felt hysteria rising, along with the regret and frustration. Damn Pegasus galaxy.

Sheppard's face didn't move, but the slap made his body sway a little, so Rodney decided laying him down before he fell down was probably the best course of action. He carefully levered Sheppard's strangely stiff body down to the ground and clicked on his radio. "Sam, Radek, I need you in the southwest tower immediately - I'm in building B34, first level. You won't be able to miss the door with the hole blasted in it. Dr. Keller, we need a medical team immediately."

As soon as he had their affirmatives, he turned back to John. "All right, asshole," he said, pointing at the console, "what did you do to him?"

_"Please rephrase the question."_

"What do you mean, rephrase it? It's a simple question. What did you do to Colonel Sheppard? He's not breathing, he's not moving, it's like he's a statue. What did you do?" Rodney tried CPR, but his chest wouldn't depress.

_"Please rephrase the question."_

"Damn it," Rodney muttered. He squeezed Sheppard's arm, not at all certain that John could feel it, and returned to the console. If he couldn't do CPR, maybe he could work on figuring out what happened and undoing it, hopefully fixing Sheppard in the process.

The console wasn't hooked into the city mainframe, so while there was a lot of data, it was relatively manageable. With Sam and Radek, they might be able to sift through it to find out what was going on.

He found a subdirectory about the energy source and started ticking through the files. It was a series of equations, each one meticulously proven or disproven, and Rodney could see exactly what this room had been used for. It was a supercomputer, used to crunch the numbers on the new and improved power source, and they had closed it up for seven thousand years to make sure it had completed all its calculations before they attempted construction of the ZPM mark two.

"Does the potential power source have anything to do with what happened to Colonel Sheppard?"

The voice didn't answer right away, and if Rodney didn't know better, he would have guessed it was _stalling_.

_"Yes."_

A sneaking suspicion hummed in the back of Rodney's mind, and he started checking a second set of subdirectories while he asked the computer questions.

"In what way?"

_"Please rephrase the question."_

Rodney sighed heavily. Talking computers were so damn annoying. "What did the energy source have to do with Sheppard's paralysis?"

_"There was an energy spike immediately prior to Colonel Sheppard's accident."_

Accident, Rodney thought. _Accident my ass._

"Can you show me that on the heads-up display, please?"

The graph appeared as Sam, Radek, and Jennifer stormed the room. Rodney went to join them, explaining what had happened as Jennifer attempted to examine Sheppard.

"He's dead."

"No," Rodney said, unsure of why he knew that, but certain that he did. "If we can figure out what did this to him and how to reverse it, he'll be fine." Jennifer started to protest, but Rodney stared her down. "He's in stasis or hibernating or petrified or something. Something in this room did this, and I'm going to find out what and undo it."

Sam looked at Jennifer and then back to Rodney, and she was the only person who could shut him down, so he was relieved when she got up to join him at the console.

"Wait!" Rodney said, as she reached out for the controls. "It needs DNA before you can work on it. Blood."

Sam's frown told him how worrisome that seemed, and he briefly wondered why he hadn't realized that earlier. She pulled a knife out of somewhere – another worrisome detail – and pricked her finger, letting the blood drop onto the console.

_"Unrecognized DNA."_

"What?" Rodney snapped. "It's Colonel Samantha Carter. She is capable of using this database too."

_"Unrecognized DNA."_

"Rodney?" Sam asked.

"Don't touch it," Rodney answered miserably. Without Sam and Radek helping him, it could take weeks to figure out how this thing had paralyzed Sheppard. "I don't know what might happen, but Sheppard seemed to think it would be really really bad."

"I could try bleeding on the computer," Radek offered.

Radek's DNA was unrecognized too, and Rodney wouldn't have even bothered except he was desperate and grasping at straws.

"Now what?" Sam asked. "Radek and I could get into the main database and try to work our way through to meet you halfway."

"No," Rodney answered, "This console isn't connected to the main database."

"Maybe we should patch it in, then," Sam suggested. "We could cross-reference it and..."

The lights in the room flickered.

"Show me the power distribution graph again," Rodney said, and the graph popped up on the HUD in front of him. There was another power spike, and Rodney heard Sheppard's last words echo in his memory. Atlantis has been talk_ing to me._ An AI. An AI that found some way to communicate with Sheppard.

"You can stop pretending now," Rodney said to the room at large. He didn't like not knowing where to look. He picked the HUD, hoping some sort of visible interface would appear. "You're an AI."

The lights flickered again before it answered. _"I am Variable Equation Confirmation Evolving Program. Vee Cee Pee for short."_

"Fix Sheppard," Rodney ordered.

_"Connect me to Atlantis."_

Rodney pulled his laptop over and started typing. If the AI had done something to Sheppard, which was looking more and more likely, there was no way they could get the information from the console without either giving in to its demands or it possibly killing Sheppard. Letting an AI loose in the Ancient database was out of the question, so that left one possibility.

"No."

He passed the computer with to Sam, trusting her to get them all out before Rodney implemented his almost Sheppardian rescue plan.

_"I will kill Colonel Sheppard."_

"No you won't," Rodney said, though he wasn't sure of that at all. He pulled Sheppard's backpack to him, thankful that Sheppard was such a boy scout and had packed plenty of extra C4.

Sheppard's body _melted_ then, going from rigor mortis-like stasis to a more natural looking unconsciousness. Rodney watched Jennifer out of the corner of his eye, leaning over Sheppard and listening for heart sounds. breath sounds, any kind of sounds. "No heartbeat. I need the AED."

_"I would not advise that course of action."_

"On the gurney," Rodney called desperately. "Get out of here."

Sheppard's body seized up, bowing upward in a perfect arc.

"OUT!" Rodney yelled, launching himself off the floor and planting the two bricks of C4 on either side of the console. He heard the team scrambling behind him as he put the detonators in, and he ran, chasing the gurney out the door.

As soon as they were clear, he set off the C4. He watched Sheppard's body settle like ripples in a pond; a strangely synchronized contrast to the sound of Rodney's dreams exploding.

* * *

John heard Rodney's voice coming to him from far away, almost as if piped in over a loudspeaker. All he saw was white, and the brightness was blinding. He hadn't been sleeping, he didn't think – he didn't feel rested, anyway, but he was too tired to even move his head, so he slid back under, the lure of the morphine guiding his way.

* * *

John could feel his body now, stiff and weak, but _there_ and he tried to raise his head. No luck. He opened his eyes, though, and suddenly the brightness was full of color and shape.

John trained his eyes to the side where he'd heard Rodney's voice coming from and to his great surprise, his head turned. Rodney looked haggard. There was more grey in his hair than John remembered, and the downturn of his mouth seemed to be permanent. "Rodney," John whispered, though nothing but air came out. He swallowed deliberately, feeling his Adam's apple bob, and tried again. "Rodney," he whispered, and this time, Rodney raised his eyes.

"John!" Rodney cried, and leaned forward to put a warm hand on John's face. "Jesus, you're awake. Dr. Keller! He's awake!"

John's strength returned surprisingly quickly. He was weak, yes, but he could move, his arms and legs obeyed him, and he started to get out of bed.

"Whoa," Rodney said, pressing a hand on his chest. "You're not ready for that yet."

John looked down the length of his body and saw the various lines going into and out of him. He was familiar enough with catheters to know you couldn't just pull them out like you could with IVs, so he laid back down and got Rodney to talk to him through Keller's poking and prodding.

"Tell me what happened," John said, as Keller was asking him to squeeze her fingers and push against her hands.

"The Ancients had an idea for a new power source, but since they were at war with the Wraith, they didn't have the manpower to sit around testing all the variables involved. So they set up a supercomputer to crunch the numbers and set the timer for seven thousand years."

Jennifer looked down his throat as he said 'ahhh' and made his pupils dilate with the penlight before squeezing his arm and telling Rodney not to talk him to death.

"Apparently the Ancients don't believe in calculators. The supercomputer was equipped with an evolving program. I don't know how long it was sentient, but I'd guess for a thousand years or more."

"And it talked to me because..."

"Maybe it was lonely," Rodney said. John laughed, but Rodney just smiled sadly. "It wanted to get into the Atlantis mainframe."

John nodded. It could talk to John, but what it really wanted was Rodney – someone who could break it out of the prison it'd been in. He didn't really blame it, except maybe for the excruciating electric shocks.

"How long have I been out?" John asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"A week," Rodney answered. "Though it felt like years."

"An eternity," John corrected.

Rodney smiled bitterly. "You're back now."

"Mmmph," John said, closing his eyes for just a second. "Thanks, Rodney."

"Idiot," Rodney said fondly. "It was my fault you got into this mess. Least I could do was get you out of it."

"Yeah," John said, though he wasn't sure what he was agreeing to any more. "Next time you should listen to me when I tell you I have a bad feeling."

"Maybe we should have a code word so I know it's not just your overprotective military nature."

"Like what?" John asked, grinning. "Maybe 'I've got a bad feeling, Rodney'?"

"All right, all right. I'll listen to you next time." Rodney leaned in close and squeezed John's arm. "Go to sleep."

John smiled as he slipped under again.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the fairytale [Faithful John](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusty_John). Originally I had this idea for the Fairytale challenge at sga_flashfic but it didn't quite get done. Then lavvyan needed a pick-me-up so I dusted it off, basically rewrote the whole thing, and here it is. Thanks to [](http://soleta.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**soleta**](http://soleta.dreamwidth.org/) for a quick lookover and making me write it better instead of easier. Thanks also to [](http://facetofcathy.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**facetofcathy**](http://facetofcathy.dreamwidth.org/), [](http://healingmirth.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**healingmirth**](http://healingmirth.dreamwidth.org/), and trobadora for help fixing it up.


End file.
